


The Fighter Still Remains

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: The Legend of Dragoon
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Gen, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3445853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe, Zieg Feld survives the Battle of Kadessa. His only wish - is that he hadn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fighter Still Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel.
> 
> This is part of a larger AU in which Zieg and Rose's roles are flipped. gatheringbones's [knight of misrule](http://archiveofourown.org/works/610702) does it better, but it's been a deadfic for two years. I decided to make my own contribution to TLOD AUs.
> 
> Also - angst. Lots of angst.

Sometimes, a man outlives his welcome.

Humanity rejoiced, but Zieg was numb.

“I should have died,” he snarled at anyone who came near. Fellow veterans assured him that he was a hero, it was only the survivor’s guilt speaking, the wonder was that it hadn’t started before now – “You don’t understand. I should have _died!_ ”

The final duel had been between him and Melbu Frahma. Out of sheer spite, it seemed, the Wingly Emperor had prepared a final curse of petrification – an ever-lasting spell that, because it technically did not kill its victim, would trap their spirit in stasis forever.

It should have been him.

Rose had stayed near the entrance to the vast chamber, holding off any forces that might rush to their Emperor’s aid. That had been the plan. But she had completed her task a little too soon, and dived down to assist –

It should have been him.

Both he and Melbu Frahma had been focused entirely on their duel, each a split-second away from death. Rose was fast, Rose was stealthy, and –

It should have been him.

In the end, it was a blade in the back that ended the life of the Wingly Emperor, as any courtier could have predicted. For a wild second, all had been stunningly, giddily right with the world – and then Melbu had let out raspy, dying laughs, and the final curse had taken effect.

It should have been him. It should have been Rose who watched on in horror, Rose who escaped to make her way in the new world. Rose should have _lived_. Someone other than him should have lived. Someone other than the leader of the Dragoons, who emerged battered from the ruins to find his world shattered, his comrades dead, and the rest of the world _cheering_ –

If there had been anything in him left to rejoice, he would have joined in their chorus of cheers. Instead, he could only weep.

* * *

Michael disappeared for parts unknown – Zieg would have thanked Soa if he believed in the goodness of the god. The dragon went mad after the death of his Mistress, and nothing the Winglies did could restrain him. It took a Dragoon who knew his weak spot to drive him off – and Michael had enough respect for his prowess to not stay past the first blow. Zieg half-wished the brute hadn’t the wit to retreat, but, at the same time, Michael was the last relic that remained of Rose; it gave him irrational comfort that Michael might well endure down the ages, long after any other tribute to her had crumbled into dust.

He tried to give her one. He tried. In those first few heady days after the fall of Kadessa, Emperor Diaz had asked Zieg to name anything that he desired, and it would be given to him. Anything.

Zieg had barely retained the sense to not laugh bleakly and ask him to give him his comrades back. Rose, Belzac, Shirley, Kanzas, Syuveil, Damia… What could anything a mortal emperor could give him compare? They had been his family, his life, and his world. He had failed them, they had all died, and he did not understand why he should still be alive…

With no point left to any request, he asked only that it should be known to all that Rose had died in his place, and rose petals rain down upon the capital in tribute. He did not care where they got the petals. He did not care how many they used. He only wanted a fitting tribute to the best woman he had ever known.

Emperor Diaz could not be faulted. (Or had it been Charle?) The capital had been showered for days, stopping only at night, and Zieg had watched them somberly from the window. _It’s fitting_ , he repeated to himself.

_She’s dead_ , his mind echoed.

In retrospect, it had been selfish. The others deserved tribute, too. They had fought just as hard and just as long, and it had been a mere happenstance of fate and romance that he had lived to request a tribute for Rose, rather than Shirley asking for a tribute for Belzac or Kanzas demanding a tribute for her.

He hadn’t thought of that at the time. Even now, he wondered if he really cared.

The great Zieg Feld, hero of the Dragon Campaign.

What a fool.

* * *

Charle found him in mourning. Rather – Charle found him when the man of fire was burnt to cinders, and contemplating stamping out the flames entirely.

He’d not needed alcohol to get to this state. He was as dry as a forest before a brushfire. Zieg Feld was a deeper thinker than his reputation would suggest, and he had given a great deal of long and hard thought about the existence that awaited him: a figurehead, an addled war hero, a dressed-up figure to be trotted out on ceremonial occasions and stuffed back into some dark, dusty room with all the other ornaments when he was no longer needed. A fool who had lost all his friends to the war, a man whose heart was broken, a survivor who still played out every battle in his head when he closed his eyes and thought of all the ways he could have saved them. All the ways he had failed.

The common people had not been informed that the Dragoons had died, save for Rose, and that only at Zieg’s demand. They made up their own tales about what had happened to their heroes. They had been sent by Soa himself, and returned to the heavens once their deed was done. They were elemental spirits and had returned to nature. They had been the spirits of Wingly-slain dragons, only assuming human form to make their allies more comfortable, and had found peace upon the end of the Empire that had brought about their deaths. Whatever the tale – they were gone now. Only their leader remained, lingering a little while longer to guide free humanity to prosperity and peace.

In recent days, Zieg had begun to contemplate that it was time for him to disappear as well.

But Charle saw this, and Charle did not permit it.

Charle was kind, and Charle was cruel. Charle gave him a continued reason to exist. Charle asked the vilest thing of him that he could imagine. Charle promised him this reason would exist forever. Charle told him that he would have to do it again, and again, and again, until Endiness itself crumbled into dust. No one else could do this, Charle said. No one else could do this, Charle said again.

Of course Zieg accepted. He had no choice.

For the first time since Kadessa, the guilt lifted a little. Some part of him was glad they had died, and he had lived. It had spared them this.

* * *

All that he had done, he had done so that humanity would never again fear terror from the sky, the magic that burned, the blade that slew. Humanity might have to fear humanity – that had always been a possibly, a certainty in grimmer minds than his, and he had thought upon that and accepted that. At least they would never know the terror that they had in the days of old, when inhuman forces ruled the sky and gave no justification for where and when they murdered. Or how many, or whom.

Now he descended as a monster from the sky, his magic all-consuming, his blade hungering after blood – without an instant’s justification or explanation, without moderation, without sparing a single one. Women, children, the elderly, even the very beasts – all died. All burned. And no one knew why.

The irony was not lost upon him.

All that maintained his sanity through the first cycle was that he had no more tears to weep.

After that, it was easier. It was always easier. Every time the God of Destruction’s soul was reborn, it took a shard of his with it.

* * *

 

History had a hundred Zieg Felds. Always blond, always a warrior, always dressed in red armor. Always swearing he wasn’t the same Zieg as any other – always a liar.

Zieg knew it was foolhardy, and yet he could hardly help it. He was once a warrior, always a warrior. Heroism was the only reason he had not to lie in bed and sleep and sleep and sleep until the Moon Child came again. He could not die, so he was forced to live.

He might have changed more, if not for Charle’s choker. He suspected that it froze more than his body in time. The eons had not brought merciful oblivion to his memories of his friends; the final battle still burned in his mind as brightly as the day it had occurred. His head still jerked around and his heart still skipped a beat at the sight of slender, dark-haired, sharp-eyed women with clever smiles and cleverer minds. He still dreamt of what might have been…

What was the point to it? The world did not care. He found even his own emotions wearisome. For the crime of defying Soa, he would wander this world forever. His sole consolation was that he had a world to wander.

Some part of him, crushed down so far by the millennia that he had forgotten its existence, held out hope that there might be an end to this endless journey, and that the tyranny of Soa’s will might be broken after all.

He never let such a thought reach the circumstance of his consciousness, however; as the moon rose red over Mille Seasau and he readied himself for the chase, he never imagined that it would be the final time.


End file.
